CHAPTER NINETEEN - SORCHA'S EPIPHANY
The Abbey was a grim stack of rocks clinging to a mountainside. The path to the door was an invisible goat track, the Abbey itself built entirely from unhewn stone slabs without cement or mortar, a bizarre work of art in its own right and yet foreboding to look upon and horrible to inhabit. Only when they stood on the very threshold did Sorcha comprehend the size of the place; it stood only two stories high, the quarry detritus of the building's construction melding it into the craggy landscape so that the outbuildings and walls of the compound faded into the grey tableau of the mountainside. Only the gates revealed any artifice beyond the slotting of uneven stones together, two huge oaken doors riveted with iron studs. Sorcha said nothing, dismay balanced by the knowledge that she had come here without any coercion once her sentence had been pronounced. Inside, the Abbey was if possible grimmer and less welcoming; torches guttered in craggy niches, barely sufficient to light the cave-like interior while filling the place always and everywhere with thin acrid smoke. The Inquisitrix hosted a brief tour of the compound, for what it was worth. There was a single large chamber where the nuns and novices ate together in silence, sitting on the floor at a low stone table that ran the length of the room. Sorcha knew without needing to be told that the diet would consist of porridge and bread and little else. On the upper floor of the main building was the dormitory; there were no beds, only blankets on the floor, and no privacy at all. The toilets were a stone shed housing a long trough running to a deep hole in the ground. The stables where Sorcha and the Inquisitrix left their horses were the warmest and most comfortable rooms in the compound; only the armoury and stores had been built with greater concern. In the main building, drafts entered through narrow windows and chinks in the ill-fitting rock walls; the stables, armoury and stores were solidly built, windowless, without the space between two rocks to slide a piece of paper, their doors guarded day and night by senior members of the nunnery.
“You have an hour before dinner,” the Inquisitrix informed Sorcha. “No one eats without washing first; I suggest you take a little time to pray, then go down to the well and scrub up. Pay no mind to the other girls; today you're settling in, tomorrow your new life begins. I may summon you tonight to discuss your spiritual direction; if not tonight, then tomorrow.”
Sorcha put their horses in the stable, took off their riding tack and refreshed their hay and water before hurrying to see to her own needs.
She did not know her way around the Abbey, and in the fading afternoon light the open layout of the compound was a confusing mass of jagged stone walls and structures; it took her ten minutes to find the postern arch that led out to an open quarry on the mountainside where a cataract of water spilt down through the rocks.
There were still a dozen women at the spring, drying and dressing before dinner. They barely glanced at Sorcha, anonymous in her habit and mask, and she forced herself to appear unflustered as she approached and tested the water with one hand. It was bone-chillingly cold; she had to restrain a yelp, glancing askance at the nuns now making their way back to the Abbey.
Alone, she sat on a rock and took off her boots and hesitantly braved the icy stream as deep as her shins. She was still standing there shivering with her habit drawn up around her knees when she heard a bell ringing from somewhere in the Abbey. She assumed it was the call to dinner and decided she had made token obedience to the instruction to wash. Drying hurriedly, she pulled her boots back on and ran back up the rocky trail to the Abbey.
The main hall was laid for dinner, with a cauldron of steaming vegetables on the hearth and wooden bowls piled at one end of the table, but the room was empty. Sorcha knew she had been only a few minutes and guessed by the ongoing urgency of the bell that something was amiss. Mastering her confusion, she quit the main hall and took a circuit of the Abbey grounds, finding the rest of the inhabitants at the armoury doors receiving swords and longbows. Then the Inquisitrix' voice cut above the bustle of activity; “Sorcha, come here!”
The Inquisitrix put a sword belt in Sorcha's hand and demanded to know if she could shoot.
“Yes, but...”
“Good, arm yourself and join the women above the gate. Do as they do and don't say a word. Get to it!”
Sorcha obeyed, and within a few confused moments found herself standing on the crude rampart above the Abbey gate, a longbow in her hand and half a dozen women in masks and habits flanking her on either side, likewise armed.
The sun had set early behind the ramparted slopes of Mount Karonan, but from the northwest another light appeared, red and baleful like an unnatural dawn, the same light she had seen above the walls of Loth Kavnor. Soon the source of the light emerged from the rocky terrain surrounding the Abbey, a figure like an armoured man wreathed in incandescent flames.
A murmur of fear passed through the Silvan nuns waiting on the Abbey walls, but the Inquisitrix was there, marching along the ranks to maintain order. She had her rosary in hand, the beads wound and tangled with a tiny silver seahorse, the emblem of the Silvanni Order; with these holy relics, she blessed the arrows of each girl she passed, pausing only when she came to Sorcha.
“You know what that is, don't you, girl?”
“It's a demon,” Sorcha whispered, drawing looks of alarm from the women immediately flanking her. “Monte kept it in a magic ring... he called it Stantine Fenn.”
“Well, your boy is dead,” the Inquisitrix said, “and no demon can stand against true faith. Aim straight and stand tall.”
The approaching figure was within hailing distance now; the Inquisitrix stood upon the wall and called down; “Turn back, demon; you cannot enter here!”
The burning figure gave no response and did not slow in its advance; the Inquisitrix raised one hand and every woman on the ramparts set an arrow to the string and bent her bow in readiness. When the Inquisitrix' hand flashed down, a score of arrows sang through the twilight only to ignite and be consumed within ten feet of their target.
A second volley had just as little impact; the Inquisitrix raised her hand to stay the third salvo, her mask unreadable but her eyes febrile and afraid.
The enemy was directly beneath the gate now and the Abbey's defenders could feel the great heat of the monster. Sorcha was among a handful of women who stuck their heads over the wall in time to see the burning figure place one hand against the door as if to push it aside; the oaken panel was barred, but after only a few seconds' resistance, the monster's hand and forearm burned through the barrier.
The heat suddenly lessened, and the brightness of the burning figure lessened, but within a few moments a new heat began to emanate from the gate. The oaken doors smoked and blackened; the iron hinges began to glow, the power ebbing from the demon into the barrier before it. Then the great iron-banded doors of ancient oak exploded into the Abbey courtyard, reduced to flaming shards of charcoal and shrapnel.
Through the breach, the burning figure entered the Abbey.
“About face!” the Inquisitrix roared, “Cut him down!”
The third waiting volley hit the demonic intruder from all sides, the Abbey walls bristling with archers who now plied their bowstrings until their last arrow was spent. The fiery spectre weathered the storm, arrows burning up around him until the courtyard was littered with ash as thick as snow.
“Swords!” the Inquisitrix commanded and drew both her blades.
Longbows were discarded and steel bared; down in the courtyard, a squad of sword-dancers advanced to encircle the intruder.
“They'll all be killed!” Sorcha hissed and tried to grab the Inquisitrix' arm.
“Get off me! If you won't fight, then pray.”
Already some of the nuns were doing just that, letting their weapons fall as they abandoned earthly conflict in favour of spiritual aid. The low murmur of their prayers was drowned out by the screams of the sword-dancers as wall of murderous heat rolled out of the enemy. The swordswomen's hair and clothes caught fire, their weapons turned red hot in their hands. They collapsed in unison ten feet from the foe, screaming and tearing at their suddenly searing steel masks.
Before the Inquisitrix could bring the remaining nuns down from the ramparts to give battle, five of the seven sword-dancers lay unmoving while the last two assisted each other to crawl away. Not one had come close enough to land a single blow.
Only now did the intruder speak, the voice of an inferno tortured into mortal speech.
“You know who I've come for; surrender the girl as you value your lives.”
“Never!” The Inquisitrix returned, advancing to the limits of the killing aura that surrounded the enemy. “Go back to hell, either of your own accord or on the points of our swords.”
The burning warrior growled like a furnace chewing through a stubborn log and swept his attention across the masked faces of the women confronting him. The voice that spoke now was changed, recognisably human but still underscored by the hiss and crackle of a forge.
“Sorcha, where are you? I don't want to kill all these women, but they'll all die if this goes on. Where are you?”
“Monte?” Sorcha ignored the Inquisitrix' warning growl and stepped from the Silvanni ranks, seeing now DeSilva's features through the nuclear fire blazing from his body. “What happened to you?”
“He's sold his soul to Haroum,” the Inquisitrix replied. “Stand back girl, unless you mean to join him in damnation.”
DeSilva let the light and fire die away around him; only the coals in his eyes and the heat-haze around his shoulders like a halo remained. Seeing him in the flesh, Sorcha started down the steps from the battlements to the courtyard. The Inquisitrix seized her by the collar and hauled her back, signalling with her sword in the same movement.
One archer had retained a single arrow and now took her chance, loosing the shot while DeSilva restrained the fire of Stantine Fenn. Swift as the arrow flew, Desilva saw it and raised his hand. Flames blossomed on his fingertips and engulfed his arm before lunging forward into a fiery shield that turned the arrow to powder long before it reached him.
Extending his finger and his will, DeSilva set the archer and her bow alight from twenty feet away. The woman shrieked but was quickly thrown to the ground and extinguished by her sisters.
“Once more and I really will kill you all,” DeSilva said, his hand still upraised and wreathed in flames. “I'd rather not, just because this is grossly unfair; there's really nothing you can do to stop me.”
“I have the measure of you,” the Inquisitrix said. “None can approach while the demon is upon you, not even the girl you've come for; to take her you must lower your guard, and then we will kill you.”
“Sorcha,” DeSilva said, offering her his mortal hand, “come with me.”
Sorcha and the Inquisitrix moved together, the older priestess swifter in her resolve; Sorcha was ware only of racing down the stairs, she neither saw nor heard the Inquisitrix's pursuit. Even as Sorcha took Desilva's hand, the Inquisitrix's sword flashed down upon him.
The sword's edge bit only to turn as if against a mail coat; the blade flared suddenly red hot and seared the Inquisitrix's hand in the same moment that Sorcha flung herself into DeSilva's arms.
In one movement, he caught her bodily and shielded her with one arm, thrusting the other hand out in a warding gesture at the Inquistrix.
She had no chance no chance to heed him; her second sword was already in motion, sweeping up in a cut aimed to kill Sorcha and DeSilva together.
Before the blow fell, DeSilva planted the palm of his hand over the Inquisitrix's face. Again, the killing heat arose, focused this time in his hand. The Inquisitrix's scream was horrible but brief; her mask dissolved like wax in a flame and her face seared away in an instant to leave only the blackened skull beneath. DeSilva held her until she collapsed to her knees, still twitching in her death throes while the terrified Silvanni could only watch and pray.
The flash of heat that spelt the Inquisitrix's death set Sorcha's habit on fire; she flapped at herself in momentary panic, then tore the burning garment off and flung it away. DeSilva put his cloak about her and held her naked against his chest, his killing hand still raised and smeared with the charred gore of the Inquisitrix.
“If you tell me you want to stay...” he began, but Sorcha cut him off with a sob.
“No! Take me away from here, Monte, I don't want to live like this!”
Breaking free of his embrace, she faced the surrounding Silvanni, took off her mask and flung it away to face them fully naked.
“You twisted bunch of dykes! You think I'd even set foot in this place if I'd had the slightest choice?! I'd rather my family had sold me to a brothel, and every single one of you thinks the same! Are you jealous? Just leave; go and get laid, that's what I plan to do! Put that in your prayer-books, because there's absolutely nothing wrong with sex and the thought of spending the rest of my life here with you useless neutered bitches makes me want to die! As soon as we're away from here, the first thing I'll do is fuck this man blind!”
The surviving Silvanni stood shocked into silence, unable to move for a long time even after DeSilva and Sorcha had left, hand in hand.
“You cuss like a harem girl,” DeSilva remarked as they crossed the threshold of the Abbey. Sheltering beneath his cloak from the wind, Sorcha hugged him close and asked if he had happened to bring her any clothes.
“Only a harem outfit from the Winter Palace,” DeSilva confessed. “I've not had a chance to surprise you with it...”
The last any of the nuns heard of Sorcha was her laughter as she and DeSilva walked away.